


...Sink Ships

by istia



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Gen, POV Jennifer Keller
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-05-18
Updated: 2008-05-18
Packaged: 2017-12-04 11:02:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/710064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/istia/pseuds/istia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jennifer realizes an old adage might not be just an old adage.</p>
            </blockquote>





	...Sink Ships

Carson's research notes on the Regalen of M4L-597 offered a fascinating, in-depth--though unfortunately incomplete--study of immunity to a local viral pathogen within a small and in-bred population. Outsiders, unlike those born on the planet, almost universally exhibited severe influenza-type symptoms within five days of a visit, and no immunity occurred. The illness following a tenth visit was as intense as the first--

A shadow fell across the monitor and Jennifer glanced up, expecting one of her staff. She smiled involuntarily at seeing, instead, John Sheppard, deriving her usual moment of amusement at picturing him with a Marlborough dangling from the corner of his mouth; with his lanky body, black clothes, and hipshot stance, that was all it needed to complete the image of an iconic badass loner. He might be--technically--old enough to be her father, but she considered the daily appreciation of John Sheppard's sensual looks (and the occasional private indulgence in speculating about what he might be like in, um, personal moments) as one of the perks of this posting.

She buried her fancies with the ease of practice and did a quick, automatic scan of him for injury. He ended up on a treatment bed dubiously often when sparring with Ronon, but she couldn't see any obvious signs of blood, though his hair was damp and he smelled of shower gel.

"John, hi. Can I help you with something?"

He shifted, straightening from his habitual lean, and glanced aside. He smiled, but it was oddly constrained, brittle, and didn't reach his eyes. Her own smile dipped with concern.

John hooked his thumb over his shoulder in a vague gesture toward the room at large. "Could we talk alone for a minute?"

"Oh, sure." She closed the file with a quick touch and stood up. He let her lead him to her office, a small room off the main infirmary. She caught Marie's eye and tilted her head; Marie nodded back and Jennifer knew her head nurse wouldn't interrupt, barring an emergency, but would know where she was if needed.

She shut the door behind John and seated herself at her desk as he settled into the chair in front. She smiled, projecting the calm and reassurance she'd been taught to project and which was finally becoming (mostly) effortless.

"What can I do for you?"

"I was sparring with Ronon this afternoon."

She frowned and did another quick once-over of what she could see of him. "Any damage?"

"No. No, I'm good."

"All right, then. You two are something of a menace to each other occasionally, you know." She smiled, masking her attempt to figure out what was up with him. She ventured, "The knee giving you any trouble?"

He looked straight into her eyes for the first time. "Yeah, that's what I wanted to talk to you about."

"Okay."

Problems manifesting due to old injuries from playing college football weren't uncommon amongst active men heading into middle age. John had wrenched his previously damaged left knee on a mission and it took longer to heal than it would've when he was younger and the knee hadn't been abused as often. She'd thought he'd recovered well by now, though.

"It's still giving you problems? Do you get a burn when you stretch, or twinges when you pivot or put weight on it? We should do another scan." She turned to the computer to call up his file.

"No, it's okay. Pretty much fully recovered."

"Well," she looked up and smiled gently, "not really 'recovered,' at least not what we could term completely. As I explained, the repeated damage--"

"It's fully recovered in the sense it's not stopping me doing my job."

His eyes, which usually cycled like a child's pinwheel through warm shades of green, brown and amber, were as cool and flat as Lake Superior on a January dawn, and his voice matched. She paused, startled, and glanced down before looking back at him and speaking with tentative warmth.

"Right. Good, well, I'm glad to hear that. So...what can I do for you?"

"While I was sparring with Ronon, he asked me how my knee was doing. Wanted to go easy on me."

She bit down on a smile, relaxed and reassured. So, it looked like even seasoned Air Force colonels weren't immune to wounded pride, though she'd never really thought of John's competing with Ronon, of all people. Pretty much everyone was guaranteed to feel inadequate in comparison to Ronon! But it was endearing, in a way, one more trait to add to John's tally of disarming qualities. Did he need reassurance from a professional to salve his wounded pride? She could do that. With a straight face, even.

When she looked up, however, his eyes were still flat and watchful. Without his usual easy smile, he looked stern and the lines around his eyes seemed deeper. She'd seen him in various moods, from worried to outright afraid--when the City was in danger or one of his team was injured--to sick himself, feverish and in pain, even hallucinating. She'd seen him angry, too; he'd been outright infuriated about Dr. Weir and the nanites, though he'd directed it all at Rodney rather than at her part in that decision.

But she'd never seen him look so remote that he seemed unknowable.

His voice was quiet, but as cool as his eyes. "Thing is, I never told him about my knee. Back on that planet, he saw me fall while we were running for the gate, but I got up right away and we were all more or less limping by the time we got through the gate. And that was over a month ago. He's never mentioned it and there wasn't any reason he would." His eyes had the wintry opaqueness of ice rimming the lake shore. "Because he didn't know I'd wrenched it till you mentioned it to him at lunch yesterday."

The air suddenly seemed thinner. "I...." She licked her lips, trying to think of something, anything, to say.

His voice, precise and calm, cut between them like a knife. "I never mentioned my knee because it's not an issue. I've been dealing with this weakness since I was nineteen; I know my limits and how to compensate. You did the scans and we both knew there wasn't any new injury, just a wrench that needed time to heal. I kept us off the mission schedule till I knew I wasn't going to be a danger to my team."

On the last word, his lips pressed together, their fullness disappearing into a thin white line. He always said "my team" with a special emphasis, the way other people might say "my wife." She'd always counted his devotion to his team as another of his endearing qualities.

But the John Sheppard facing her now was remote from the man she'd thought she knew. He looked his age, and she abruptly felt hers, viscerally aware of the almost twenty-year gap in experience between them.

She clasped her hands together in her lap, fingers in a painful knot, to keep from lifting them to cover her burning cheeks. She swallowed and met his gaze straight on.

"I apologize, John. I'm--" She broke off, reading in his stony face that he didn't want explanations; just reassurance, she thought, though quite a different sort from her original expectation.

She firmed her voice, glad it hadn't betrayed her shock with even a hint of a quaver. "I was wrong to discuss your medical history with anyone other than you--" _and Colonel Carter and the heads of the IOA and select members of the SGC, in special circumstances; but, heck, no point muddying the waters_ "--and I promise it won't happen again."

He continued to look remote for a few long, still moments, studying her with his own face like granite. Then he pursed his lips and nodded. "Okay, thanks."

He stood with the return of his usual loose grace, and she hurried to stand, too, fighting the sense of being overwhelmed: too small, too young; disadvantaged before his age and implacability. She felt a pang of loss as he turned away, already missing the easy footing she'd enjoyed with him virtually from the start. He'd accepted her professionally in Carson's position despite John's affection for her predecessor, and his companionship had followed. He'd never been anything but affable and friendly off the job, and understanding of her uncertainty in her new position on it; she'd thought he might've felt something similar when he'd abruptly become military leader during the expedition's first year, before her arrival.

She was surprised how much it chafed that he might think less of her now.

Watching him head for the door, she made a preliminary attempt to mend fences: "I just want to assure you I'm not in the habit of breaking confidentiality. I take my oaths seriously...." She trailed off as he turned to face her, a forbidding stranger with stones for eyes.

But as she stood quietly under his scrutiny, the hardness fell away until he looked like his old self, loose-limbed and approachable, with even the lines around his eyes relaxed into a more familiar look.

His voice was lighter, too, tired but closer to his usual bantering with an undercurrent of laid-back humor, like there was a joke between them to share. "Yeah, I know you do." He smiled with his old infectious charm. "It's not an easy job; things never let up around here. Oh, and hey, is Rodney off the medication for--what was it?--restless leg syndrome now?" He didn't quite roll his eyes, but they twinkled at her.

She blinked at the non sequitur, but smiled, tension easing at his magnetism. "Well, yes. It wasn't ever really anything; you know what he's like. The pills were more placebo than--" She juttered to a stop as his eyes narrowed, the warmth and humor on his face vanishing. Her cheeks flamed again, and this time she couldn't stop herself from lifting a hand, fingertips skittering across her lips before she forced her hand back down to her side.

John folded his arms across his chest and she felt an almost physical push, as though a wall of air had thrust up between them like an iceberg. His voice was expressionless. "Teyla happened to mention Rodney and his condition; she said you told her about it while the two of you were stranded on New Athos. She didn't realize there were any...implications in your casual mention of it."

She lost the struggle to continue meeting his stare. She nodded with her eyes averted. She saw his unlaced boots move a step closer to her and stop. His voice washed over her head, quiet but steely.

"I didn't tell Ronon about my knee because if he thinks I'm compromised, it could get somebody else hurt. If he's watching me because he thinks I might need help, that means he's not watching out for some danger around us that could end up killing him, or Teyla or Rodney. It's not about an oath, Doctor; it's about life-and-death situations and protecting my team."

The way he enunciated each of the last three words, with a hard edge on "team," made her stomach jerk. His boots didn't move; she closed her eyes, opened them again and still saw them. She knew she wasn't in any danger, but for the first time since she'd known him, she was acutely aware of him as the determined soldier who'd killed more people than she'd probably ever even know about. In defense of Atlantis: And for the good of his team.

She cleared her throat and lifted her head with an effort. She spoke with as much emphasis of her own as she could. "It really will never happen again, Colonel."

He held her gaze for a few interminable moments, then nodded. "Good. I'm sure it won't."

He turned away and opened the door. She started to sink into her chair, but froze when he turned around to glance her way again. "I think it'll be better if I see Dr. Krasowski for non-emergency care from now on. That won't be a problem?"

Her stomach was full of ground glass, but she managed to match his matter-of-fact tone. "No, of course not, that's your choice. I'll forward your full medical record to Dr. Krasowski immediately."

"Thank you." He tipped his head, stilted and formal; but weary, too. "Doctor."

She nodded back. "Colonel."

She was alone in her office then, the muted sounds of the infirmary offering the comfort of safe ground. She sat down, set her elbows on the desk, and pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes; she could feel the residual burn in her skin. For a fractured moment, she thought she'd never before been this alone and isolated, not even as a prodigy in medical school ten years younger than her colleagues.

She dropped her hands and woke her computer from sleep. She drafted an official memo to Dr. Krasowski and attached Colonel Sheppard's medical records.

Hearing the organized bustle of evening shift-change beyond her open door, she glanced at the clock. She'd ask one of the orderlies to bring her a meal from the mess in a little while. She had a lot of work to catch up on.


End file.
